7:34 AM, 18th of December, 1728.
Screams surrounded Alexander. Flames were dancing along the skies. He looked around, terrified of the sight in front of him. People were dying. Some were taking others' lives, some were taking their own. Everyone looked crazed. The frantic screams surrounding him seemed to stir his consciousness, leading to a moment of clarity. He tried to focus, to recognize where he was standing, and then for a moment he saw it. He was standing just outside the city hall.
Alexander opened his eyes. Terror filled his mind, his heart pounding, and his back covered in sweat, but a sense of accomplishment was there as well. If his dream was more than just a dream, even if it was some metaphor of his future, he finally had some piece of information to make absolutely sure it never came true, and yet, the knowledge that what he had dreamt could come true horrified him. If it had anything to do with the lies he had recently been learning, figuring out what was written down on the last page of that book was a good starting place.
He sat at his desk, the piece of paper with the script written on it sat in front of him. The first thing he would try to do is figure out if it was a cipher. Alexander was a fan of brain teasers, often creating ciphers for his classmates to try to solve.
The most obvious would be a substitution cipher. The written text wasn't in a language he had knowledge of, but there was a chance it was simply made up, with each character corresponding to a character in their own alphabet. With a small sample of characters and no apparent key, it would need to be brute-forced, likely taking hours. Luckily, he wouldn't be meeting up with Aisha until later in the day and had no real obligations until then, so he got to work.
After dozens of sheets of paper and far too many hours wasted, Alexander came to the conclusion that no cipher he was aware of corresponded to the script. His head lay on his desk, his hair messy, his body unreasonably tired, and his stomach sufficiently hungry. He had gotten almost no sleep the night before, his mind racing and thinking of far too many things. He had also skipped breakfast to try to break what he had hoped was a simple cipher. All of that time was wasted.
After checking his pocket watch and noting the time, Alexander realized there was only an hour left until he would be meeting Aisha at the library.
-
Alexander arrived at the library, wearing a blue knit sweater his mother had made for him. The weather wasn't nearly as frigid today as it had been recently, so he opted not to wear his large overcoat. Standing at the front desk was Aisha, deep in conversation with Elliot.
Alexander stood by, listening as Aisha talked, not trying to interrupt. "I just find them so interesting. Haven't you ever wanted to learn another language? It doesn't matter if they're still used or not."
"Well, the problem is we can never really know how they're spoken aloud. I'm more interested in memorizing all these books. I can't seem to keep more than a dozen in my head at a time, though."
As Elliot responded, Aisha turned her head, smiling as she saw Alexander. "Actually, Elliot, would you mind showing us where we can find those books on languages? I was talking with Alex about it yesterday, and he also thought they were interesting."
Happy to oblige, Elliot stood and walked with them, leading them to the section featuring dead languages. Of course, every language except their own was now dead, so the term had less meaning than it used to.
"Let me know if you two need anything else. I have all the time in the world."
The section they were brought to had an abundance of books, hundreds, even, and each pertaining to languages. Before searching for the language involving the script he had copied, Alexander had to say something first, speaking in a teasing tone. "Since when were you so good at lying?"
Aisha looked to make sure Elliot was out of earshot before replying. "It's not like I want to be, but I can't just tell him why we're actually interested in dead languages. I know this isn't really in relation to my mom's death anymore, but there's obviously something amuck."
Feeling a little guilty for distracting Aisha from her true goal, Alexander responded, "After we figure this out, and after we get Blessed in a couple of days, let's focus more on her death."
Not knowing the name of the language they were searching for, Alexander picked up the first book alphabetically. Each book had varying levels of difficulty and thoroughness, some for beginners, and some more advanced. With such a large number of books to search, it could take quite a while to get through them all. Luckily, all they needed to do was skim through them until they found matching characters.
Aisha, who had been searching on the opposite side, spoke up when she found something. "I think I've found it. Bring the paper over here so I can confirm."
The book she held was entitled "Truth, The Language of Bliss, a Beginner's Guide." They had three books in total, each a different level of difficulty. The first started with referring to itself as an 'Elysian Language', a language created by, and used by, the followers of the God of Truth. Only once you had mastered the language could you find true bliss in knowledge.
Aisha, with a confused look on her face, said, "This looks." She paused, seemingly searching for the right word. "Stupidly difficult."
Alexander was also at a loss for words. They were only looking at the beginner's guide, and yet the number of grammatical rules and the complexity of the characters had left the two dumbfounded. In the back of each book was a list of characters, with their corresponding literal meanings, though those meanings would change when combined with other characters, leaving the two unable to easily translate the script.
Although he was a little disappointed, Alexander knew that having the books was already a big step towards the truth. "Well, even if we can't easily translate it, we can still check out these books and figure it out at home."
"You're right. Actually, we should have a lot of free time once we enter the dorms."
She was referring to the day before being Blessed. Every person who would be Blessed would spend the 24 hours beforehand inside a designated dormitory building, meant to help them relax as much as possible up until the moment they became Blessed.
As the two checked out the set of books, Elliot looked over their covers. "Wow, the first thing you want to study is really Elysian? I can't imagine that being easy."
Aisha responded with a smirk on her face. "We're trying to challenge ourselves, where's the fun in starting out easy?"
"There's a big difference between challenging yourselves and choosing what's possibly the most complex language we have, you know."
This time, Alexander jumped in. "It's alright, like you said, we have all the time in the world, don't we? It's not like we're in a rush to learn the language. Thanks for your help again, Elliot."
Before they left, Alexander decided to create a copy of the script to leave with Aisha. He also kept only the beginner book for himself, making it easier to split the work.
"I'm gonna work on this tonight, but tomorrow we should take a break from all this and just have some fun. Especially because we're not even going to be relaxing at the dorms."
"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow then."